Sydney overcome North Melbourne at SCG but match is overshadowed by week-long scandal
Sydney beat North Melbourne at the SCG on Sunday in a round 24 match, but the on-field victory was dwarfed by events that unfolded across the previous week and left the club and its supporters reeling.
Under ordinary circumstances the game would have been treated as a routine late-season fixture — a chance to rest key players and prepare for two home finals and to mark the club’s first-ever double-header with messages about inclusion, respect and culture. Those plans were upended after alleged events at the Pullman Hotel a week earlier, after which five Swans players were suspended for breaching club standards by “drinking … staying out late … and bringing women back to the hotel”. The fallout, the club’s critics and supporters agree, affected trust, relationships, reputations, careers, endorsements and campaigns and produced intense public reaction.
Much of the early anger was levelled at the sports media for treating the episode as a football story; the article notes poorly-worded tweets from journalists and a “tin-eared” statement from Sydney’s chief executive provoked further criticism. Across broadcast, print and in person there was evident devastation among the supporter base, particularly among women and older members, who felt betrayed by the club’s public image. Malcolm Knox captured that sentiment in the Sydney Morning Herald when he wrote that Swans fans “feel like they’ve been made fools of.”
The significance of which players were involved contributed to the sense of betrayal. Isaac Heeney is described as one of the club’s most popular figures — the man children gravitated to at training, the player boundary riders looked for at the final siren, a sponsor-friendly presence who had sat down with Hamish McLachlan on the Unfiltered program last Saturday. The account adds that Heeney even posed for a selfie with a young fan on Monday morning while the Pullman incident was unfolding, underlining how prominent the implicated players were in the club’s public life.
There were questions before Sunday about whether fans would attend the SCG; commentator Kelli Underwood predicted a “funeral”-like atmosphere, but the AFLW fixture on the same card produced a joyous crowd. The report says Sydney’s women did much of the heavy lifting across the week as they were compelled to defend the men’s program; when the AFLW game finished some supporters left the stadium and, according to reports, one woman “turned to face the stadium and stuck her middle fingers in the air”. Spectators who remained are described as staying for reasons including loyalty, habit, hope and curiosity.
On the field the Swans were visibly depleted of several leading names — the account names Isaac Heeney, Chad Warner, Nick Blakey and James Jordon as absent — and the team lacked the customary swagger. Still, Errol Gulden delivered what the piece calls one of the best games of his career, and Sydney secured the win; the narrative stresses, however, that the result and the club’s qualifying final position meant little in the face of the wider controversy.
Sydney have booked a qualifying final date with what the article describes as one of the great teams of their generation, but the story states that the central issues are now with Victoria police, and that none of the five Swans players have been arrested or charged. The report ends noting the men seen in tears at the SCG on Sunday were no longer presented as ambassadors or untouchables but simply as footballers, and that football itself was, after a fraught week, something for people to celebrate again.